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Thursday, April 10, 2014

Watch Out HDDs - SSDs are Taking Over the Market

Although hard disk drives (HDDs) have current advantages in
storage capacity and price per unit of storage, alternatives have been said to
be the next advancement in storage. HDDs are data storage devices that store
and retrieve data through fast rotating disks that are coated with a magnetic
material and can retain data when powered off. Downfalls of HDDs include
chances of erased data from magnetism, high power consumption, and slower file
operating speeds. HDDs are also prone to failure and many manufactures do not
provide a warranty over 12 months. Because of these issues, solid-state drives
(SSDs) and onboard flash solutions have recently grown to be the most favorable
storage alternative to date.

Solid-state drives (SSDs) are data storage devices that use
integrated circuit assemblies as memory to store data persistently. Providing
advantages such as durability, reduced power consumption, and speed, SSDs
contain no moving parts to operate, which reduces its chances of failure. Downfalls of SSDs include price, capacity,
and an erasing limit on the flash memory cells. Once that limit is reached,
data is erased when data is written - it cannot over-write like a HDD does.
SSDs typically have lower access time, less latency, run silently, and are more
resistant to physical shock. Other benefits of SSDs include no operational
noise or vibrations, low heat production, and reliability.

As onboard flash solutions and SSDs continue to gain
popularity as a storage alternative, many enterprises are seeking out the pros
and cons between HHDs and SSDs. Cost is one of the leading barriers keeping
enterprises from becoming an all-flash
enterprise storage environment. HDDs are typically around $0.15 per
gigabyte, whereas SSDs are roughly $0.50 per gigabyte. The cost of consumer
grade SSDs has continued to drop as of 2013 and as the adoption rate continues
to increase, the price/performance ratio is at an interesting point. However,
SSDs are still about seven times more expensive than HDDs per unit of storage.
HDDs also win the capacity war by offering greater storage capacity than SDDs.
Entry-level SSDs currently max out at 1TB, requiring the purchase of higher
capacity drives for more storage, which can be costly. HDDs provide more
capacity with less cost. Although SSDs typically have a longer life span, there
is a tremendous amount of variation between the life expectancy and reliability
of SSDs depending on the type and what it’s made for (laptop, servers,
etc.).

As HDDs continue to be the dominant choice for consumers,
many are becoming more concerned with computing performance, not cost. Whether
starting with a new storage system or upgrading to SSDs, we will continue to
see the rise of flash-optimized storage grow. An HDD still might be the right
choice if you need a lot of storage capacity, want to keep costs down, and
speed is not a factor. SSDs could be the right choice if limited storage
capacity is not a concern, but speed, form factor, noise, or fragmentation are
important factors and you are willing to pay for faster performance.